KUALA LUMPUR: Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) acknowledged that doctors from Malaysia are among the ‘source countries’ on its radar to be recruited to meet the republic’s healthcare sector needs.
Its minister, Ong Ye Kung, said that besides Malaysia, his ministry also recruits foreign doctors from countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) and India, but the numbers are small.
He said the majority of doctors serving in the country’s healthcare sector are still locals.
“We now have three medical schools. Previously, National University of Singapore (NUS) was the only institution, but its numbers were not sufficient to produce doctors. So we established a graduate medical school together with Duke-NUS University.
“We also established another at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in collaboration with Imperial College. So these three national medical schools produce about 550 doctors each year.
“In addition, many Singaporeans who do not obtain places in local medical schools choose to pursue their studies abroad. We want them to return to serve.
“However, from time to time, we do recruit doctors from overseas from various sources, some from the UK, India and Malaysia. They are only a small portion of the overall numbers,” he said.
He said this during a casual dialogue session with participants of the 17th Malaysia Journalists Visit Programme (MJVP) organised by the Singapore Ministry of Communications and Digital Development (MDDI) recently.
On Oct 30, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad had said that his counterpart in Singapore denied involvement in recruiting specialist doctors and nurses from Malaysia.
According to what was informed to him, the Kuala Selangor Member of Parliament said such activities were actually driven by private agencies.
“Honestly, I have also contacted the Singapore Health Minister. Initially, I received confirmation from him that this was an activity by private agencies.
“He himself mentioned this to me and expressed regret. Therefore, we will hold further engagement and I want this matter to be followed up because this is not the first time I have taken action,” he said.
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